News Update

Global COVID-19 cases reach more than 22.4M; death toll at 787,918 with at least 14,102,900 recoveries

Published August 21, 2020 4:22am

PARIS, France - The novel coronavirus has killed at least 787,918 people since the outbreak emerged in China last December, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 1100 GMT on Thursday.

At least 22,465,840 cases have been registered in 196 countries and territories. Of these, at least 14,102,900 are now considered recovered.

The tallies, using data collected by AFP from national authorities and information from the World Health Organization (WHO), probably reflect only a fraction of the actual number of infections.

Many countries are testing only symptomatic or the most serious cases.

On Wednesday, 6,822 new deaths and 270,587 new cases were recorded worldwide. Based on latest reports, the countries with the most new deaths were the United States with 1,286 new deaths, followed by Brazil with 1,212 and India with 977.

The United States is the worst-hit country with 173,193 deaths from 5,530,247 cases, according to Johns Hopkins university. At least 1,925,049 people have been declared recovered.

After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 111,100 deaths from 3,456,652 cases, Mexico with 58,481 deaths from 537,031 cases, India with 53,866 deaths from 2,836,925 cases, and United Kingdom with 41,397 deaths from 321,098 cases.

The country with the highest number of deaths compared to its population is Belgium with 86 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Peru (81), Spain 62, United Kingdom 61, and Italy 59.

China -- excluding Hong Kong and Macau -- has to date declared 84,895 cases (7 new since Wednesday), including 4,634 deaths and 79,745 recoveries.

Latin America and the Caribbean overall has 249,475 deaths from 6,412,017 cases, Europe 211,775 deaths from 3,617,078 infections and the United States and Canada 182,276 deaths from 5,653,583 cases.

Asia recorded 83,886 deaths from 4,241,726 cases, Middle East 33,388 deaths from 1,366,405 cases, Africa 26,622 deaths from 1,148,455 cases, and Oceania 496 deaths from 26,580 cases.

As a result of corrections by national authorities or late publication of data, the figures updated over the past 24 hours may not correspond exactly to the previous day's tallies. -- Agence France-Presse